1. Field of the Invention
The present invention pertains to the field of network management.
2. Background of the Invention
A computer network generally includes a number of network devices or components, such as routers, switches, gateways, etc. Generally, each network device has status conditions that may continuously change during operation. For example, a network router may have a variable number of network connections open at any one time.
Network management pertains to issuing commands and gathering information from these network devices. For example, a network administrator may want to monitor or manage the number or type of network connections for the router or simply verify the router is up and running. Different network protocols such as SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol), Telnet, or HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) are used for conducting these network management operations.
The problem with current network management systems is that they require a computer terminal for accessing the network device and retrieving the network management data.